Defends the Gospel of Jesus Christ and confessional Reformed Anglicanism. The term "Reformed" refers to the five solas of the Reformation and the five points of Calvinism. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal constitute the Anglican Formularies, the doctrinal standards of Anglicanism. The Lambeth Articles 1595 and Irish Articles 1615 are Reformed confessions. Isa 1:18,Rom 12:1, 2

About Me

In God's providence my doctrine has changed from Pentecostal Arminianism to Calvinism and Reformed Anglicanism. My Reformed standards are the Anglican Formularies (39 Articles of Religion, 1662 BCP, the Homilies), with the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity. Asbury Seminary, Wilmore, KY, 1995, M.Div. Southeastern University, Lakeland, Florida, 1991, B.A., Cum Laude. [Nota Bene: All e-mails to me are considered in the public domain. I reserve the right to post them on the blog. Anonymous comments may or may not be posted at the discretion of the blog owner.]
Anglo-Catholicism and Arminianism are heresies.
I view Amyraldianism as a departure from Reformed theology and I disagree with the three points of common grace and the "gracious offer". I do post or link to sites that disagree with my views at times and having those sites on my blog does not constitute an endorsement of everything said on those sites. I generally endorse the presuppositional apologetics of Gordon H. Clark.
I am open to speak at your church or to debate publicly. 2012 Copyright notice: None of my posts may be used without permission. Provide links to the original post.

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Martyred for the Gospel

The burning of Tharchbishop of Cant. D. Tho. Cranmer in the town dich at Oxford, with his hand first thrust into the fyre, wherwith he subscribed before. [Click on the picture to see Cranmer's last words.]

Collect of the Day

ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Collect from the First Day of Lent is to be read every day in Lent after the Collect appointed for the Day.

Daily Bible Verse

View Verse of the Day

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

"Man's will 'is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity
of nature determined.' These words were written to repudiate those
philosophies which explain human conduct in terms of physico-chemical
law. . . . Man is not a machine; his motions cannot be described by mathematical
equations as can the motions of the planets." Dr. Gordon H. Clark

Many semi-Arminians in the neo-Calvinist camp, including the Van Tilians, assert that man is determined by God's decrees and that man has "free will" in the libertarian sense of the word and that this is a "paradox" that cannot be rationally explained or harmonized from Scripture. They base this assumption on the Westminster Confession of Faith:

CHAPTER IX—Of Free-Will 1. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil. (Matthew 17:12, James 1:14, Deuteronomy 30:19).

".....Now what does the Confession mean by natural liberty? Does
a Presbyterian mean the same thing that a Romanist or an Arminian
means, when they say that man is free? Are there various concepts of
freedom?""Obviously
there are various concepts of freedom, and some of them have little to
do with the present topic. For example, we say today that American
citizens are free men, but that the victims of communistic governments
are not free. Freedom therefore has a political and an economic sense;
but that is not what concerns us here. Reinhold Niebuhr in FAITH AND
HISTORY writes pages on freedom; but none of it touches on free will.""Closer
to free will is the question whether or not the will of man is free
from his intellect. Theologians in the past have discussed this at
length. But that the will is free from the intellect is not what the
Confession means by natural liberty. Calvin, for example, asserted that
'the intellect rules the will'; Charles Hodge said that man's 'will was
subject to his reason,' and Robert J. Breckenridge taught that our
primary conception of will includes the notion of its being directed by
the intelligence. The theology behind all this may be a little
intricate, and the matter is mentioned only to show that freedom from
intellect is not what Presbyterians mean by the concept of freedom.""What
then does the Confession mean by the natural liberty of the will? The
remainder of the section quoted answers this question as well as two
lines can. Man's will 'is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity
of nature determined.' These words were written to repudiate those
philosophies which explain human conduct in terms of physico-chemical
law. Although the Westminster divines did not know twentieth century
behaviorism, nor even Spinoza, they very probably knew Thomas Hobbes,
and they certainly knew earlier materialistic theories. That man's
conduct is determined by inanimate forces is what the Confession denies.
Man is not a machine; his motions cannot be described by mathematical
equations as can the motions of the planets. His hopes, plans, and
activities are not controlled by physical conditions. He s not
determined by any absolute necessity of nature."

Of course, to reject logic is to reject the very propositional statements in Scripture that define Christianity as a system of doctrinal beliefs. All knowledge is propositional. The Westminster Confession of Faith does not teach the doctrine of free will as anyone who reads the following sections of chapter IX can see. According to Dr. Clark, the order of importance of the doctrines in the Westminster Confession of Faith is a descending order, the most important doctrine being Scripture, the second most important doctrine is the Trinity, and the third most important doctrine is predestination or God's eternal decrees. The doctrine of the bondage of the will does not occur until chapter IX. But that by no means implies that the Westminster divines thought the doctrine of the bondage of the will was unimportant.

Section 3 makes it clear that free will was lost after the fall. This definition of free will means freedom from slavery to sin. Adam before the fall was able not to sin. After the fall, Adam lost that ability not to sin and Adam and all his progeny lost the ability not to sin. All are sinners from birth.

3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: (Rom. 5:6, Rom. 8:7, John 15:5) so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, (Rom. 3:10, 12) and dead in sin, (Eph. 2:1, 5, Col. 2:13) is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. (John 6:44, 65, Eph. 2:2–5, 1 Cor. 2:14, Tit. 3:3–5)

The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Reformation Anglican view of free will, also says that there is no free will after the fall of Adam:

X. Of Free Will.

THE
condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn
and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to
faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works
pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God
by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will, and working
with us when we have that good will.

The inability of man to obey God's command to repent and believe the Gospel is a moral inability and not a biological or chemical predetermination to act like animals. Those who advocate that homosexuals and trans-sexuals are determined by the chemistry in their brain deny natural liberty. Calvinists deny libertarian free will and assert that man cannot act contrary to God's decrees. Isaiah 14:24, 27; 46:9-11; Daniel 4:35.